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When it comes picking my highlights of the last year, I am impossibly indecisive – as ever there have been been the usual disappointments but there have been a fair few stunners in the arts calendar. I can’t believe how many shows I’ve seen but I also feel I’ve missed a lot – if only there were a few more hours in every day.

As I did last year, I’ve chosen the exhibitions that stand out for me as being remarkable; they include stunning art work, and are interesting and well-curated. Here we go…

Triumphant at Tate – Way back in February, I visited YayoiKusama at Tate Modern and I can still vividly picture the exhibition. Kusama has always been ahead of her time – her work is beautiful, innovative and ground-breaking. The exhibition worked broadly chronologically with each sequence of rooms studying the emergence of a new artistic stance.

Yayoi Kusama, I’m Here, but Nothing, 2000. Own photograph.

Radiant at the Royal Academy – while the rest of the world is still raving about Bronze, the RA’s highlight for me was their exhibition Johan Zoffany RA: Society Observed. I admit that, as an 18th century art historian, I may be slightly biased but through these 60 or so works, the RA successfully argued his importance to the artistic culture and heritage of his time.

Johan Zoffany, Three Sons of John, Third Earl of Bute and Three Daughters of John, Third Earl of Bute, 1763-4. Own photograph.

Nailing It at the National Gallery – SeducedbyArt is still on show at the National Gallery and is an unmissable exhibition. This divided opinion but, for me, it was a stunning and enthralling. Seduced by Art is not a survey, nor a history of photography. Instead, it offers an argument and dialogue that presents historical painting, alongside historical photography, alongside contemporary photographs. The National Gallery has had a strong year and I feel its Metamorphosis: Titian 2012 (with Wallinger’s Diana in particular) is also worthy of mention.

Jeff Wall, The Destroyed Room. Image courtesy of the National Gallery of Canada and via www.ng-london.org.uk.

Leaving London – EdwardBurra at Pallant House was the first major show for over 25 years of the artist’s works in which Burra is finally awarded a smidgeon of the recognition he deserves. It offered an opportunity to study his extraordinary creativity.

This explored the creative relationship between Mondrian and Nicholson, charting the parallel paths explored by these two artists during the 1930s. It was a far more contemporary show than we would normally expect from The Courtauld and it successfully changed the gallery aesthetic, pairing two artists who many wouldn’t otherwise have realised are connected.

Artangel’s commission by Lindsay Seers, took place in the Tin Tabernacle; Nowhere Less Now was a poignant amalgam of film, photography, sculpture, performance, animation, philosophy and writing. Its complexities still offer food for thought many months afterwards.

The Tin Taberacle. Own photograph.

Brilliant Bronze – Painting from Life: CarracciFreud, Ordovas

Having successfully juxtaposed Bacon and Rembrandt in the past, Ordovas knows how to get its shows right: Painting from Life was a tiny exhibition bringing together head studies by Carracci and Freud. This was an intimate, simple and stunning juxtaposition.

Last but by no means least – Runner Up – Alberto Burri: Form and Matter, Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art

Before this exhibition, I didn’t really know who Burri was but he is undoubtedly a master of the 20th century who revolutionised the vocabulary of post-war art. From the simplest materials, Burri was able to create something monumental and striking, imbued with energy and movement.

But, there was also David Shrigley: Brain Activity at the Hayward Gallery, Leonardo da Vinci: Anatomist at the Queen’s Gallery, Rothko/Sugimoto: Dark Paintings and Secrets at Pace London, Tim Lewis:Mechanisms at Flowers, Doris Salcedo at White Cube and Louse Bourgeois: The Return of the Repressed at The Freud Museum and numerous great little shows at Josh Lilley.

I’m sure I’ve forgotten lots of gems. We are so fortunate to have such varied and high calibre art to admire on our doorstep. It’s so easy to get from gallery to gallery however precarious your footwear may be and, of course, there’s always a taxi around the corner.

It seems only fitting to include some of my favourite shoe pictures from the past year and to thank my principal shoe photographer (you know who you are).

Thank you, as ever, for reading Artista. I hope you had a very Merry Christmas and wish you all a Happy Shoe Year.

The thing I discovered when doing my gallery crawls is you need to be selective. Deviate from your list and you’ll never leave the first street so I decided on this route and, with quite a tight time frame, I knew I had to stick to it.

Josh Lilley are currently showing a group exhibition with Analia Saban, Belen Rodriguez Gonzalez, Christof Mascher, Gabriel Hartley, Marita Fraser, Nicholas Hatfull, Nick Goss, Robert Pratt and Ruairiadh O’Connell. There will be no surprises when I tell you this is another beautiful show – particularly notable is Robert Pratt’s Display Unit which grabs you as soon as you walk through the door. The seemingly precariously placed pieces of clay on the display unit are Pratt’s body parts, positioned at the correct height, in proportion to his own body.

The show gets even better as you go downstairs with works erupting from the ceiling that provide immediate visual impact. It’s particularly lovely to see a selection of Goss works on paper after his recent solo show which included his more monumental paintings. Although many of the works in the exhibition have obvious connections through materiality, process, colour, form, expressiveness and so on, Lilley has not attempted to impose a specific theme here which is quite refreshing. Instead, the gallery has aimed to bring together certain artists – many of whom studied together or have maintained friendships over the years. Through this, new and unexpected dialogues are initiated and connections made.

Next up was Blain Southern. Sadly, I missed their opening show so this was my first visit to their new Hanover Square gallery – it’s a beautiful, glass-fronted, space, with a very traditional white box aesthetic. Their current exhibition is Francesco Clemente’s Mandala for Crusoe.

Clemente at Blain Southern. Own photograph.

For Clemente’s first show in seven years, they are exhibiting fourteen large-scale paintings, using raw linen, paint, verdigris, silver pigment, mica, oil sticks and lithographic ink, which gather myriad cultural references and merge timeless motifs from Buddhism and Hinduism. In Eastern spiritual traditions, the mandala is identified as a conduit to a deeper level of consciousness. Yet, Clemente uses the mandala in unexpected ways uniting it with the banality of everyday life.

One of the strongest works for me was The Dove of War where the dove, a symbol of peace, filled with silhouettes of planes and bombs, flies through a tinged pink sky. Clemente divides his time between New York and India, feeling a nomadic affinity with the completive visual tradition of both the East and the West and this is clearly brought out in his works. Not all of the images, however, have the same strength; the choice of imagery isn’t the most exciting and it is sometimes quite crudely applied.

Francesco Clemente, The dove of war, 2012. Own photograph.

In contrast, I popped into Gimpel Fils to see Richard Smith’s kite paintings. Smith has long been interested in paintings which work in three dimensions, having created kite works since the early 1970s. The kite paintings are so successful partly due to their contrasts – the hard poles and the soft canvas, the string and the rope – and meticulous finish. Known for emphasising the importance of shape, support, colour and surface, these works focus on the physical constitution of painting. The tenser and more exaggerated they are, the more I find myself enjoying them.

Kite paintings at gimpel fils. Own photograph.

I strolled round the corner, past the currently closed Gagosian Davies Street and headed to Timothy Taylor, resisting the temptation to walk further down Mount Street to see what Christian Louboutin had in store.

Their latest exhibition presents new work by Lucy Williams who has redefined the concept of collage through her mixed media bas-reliefs of unpopulated mid-century Modernist architecture. It’s difficult to decide if these works are sculptures or collages or even how they are made. They look so simple but I have no doubt they are ridiculously complex to execute due to the high level of detail and finish. Williams starts by creating a technical drawing that can take several drafts to get right. She then picks her materials and starts to build her layers, one on top of each other. It’s the geometry of the buildings that interests her most and, from a distance, it is the modular structure of her pieces and the predominant patterns that stand out.

Lucy Williams, the tiled cathedral, 2012. Own photograph.

Although hints of activity can be seen behind closed curtains, the works are always unpopulated. People could return at any moment but, instead, we are allowed to explore these miniature and obsessively realised worlds in an oasis of calm. The works are presented on architectural supports, providing the perfect context and framework for these beautiful pieces.

Pavilion at Timothy Taylor Gallery. Own photograph.

My final stop of the day was the Royal Academy for Constable, Gainsborough, Turner and the Making of Landscape. This show particularly appeals to me as walking through its doors was like re-entering my Masters – some Sandby watercolours brought back very vivid memories indeed. The exhibition looks at the formation of landscape painting through John Constable, Thomas Gainsborough and JMW Turner, highlighting the discourses surrounding the Beautiful, the Sublime (mainly Burke this time round) and the Picturesque (championed by William Gilpin) and looking at the changing styles of landscape. The works by the three key figures are contextualised with paintings by their 18th century counterparts and prints made after 17th century Masters, showing the roots of the tradition which comes from the Carracci brothers, Nicolas Poussin, Salvator Rosa and Lorraine Gaspard Dughet. They used landscape to inform the drama in their subjects and this was important in shaping what we see in this exhibition.

Paul Sandby, Wenlock Abbey, Shropshire, The South Transept and Converted Prior’s Lodge Seen from the North Transept, 1779. Image via www.racollection.org.uk.

And, of course, there’s Richard Wilson, often regarded as the father of British landscape, who introduced an aesthetic scaffolding that encouraged a particular view with framing devices to send the viewer’s eye to the subject and referenced the landscape as a useful and enterprising place.

Looking at the shift from the idealised view of the landscape, to a celebration of the particular, imbued with ideas of morals and emotions, the works here show the discovery of the landscape of the British Isles and a move away from the Grand Tour imagery that was so popular. Specificity of landscape was very important to these artists all of whom took meticulous sketch notes.

The exhibition has been put together in a wonderfully engaging way – the first room looks at the work of Richard Long, Norman Ackroyd, Michael Kenny and John Maine showing the lasting legacy of the three artists on which the show focuses. This offers a fascinating framework through which to see the exhibition and I hope will quash any silly comments that landscape is boring. After this bold start, the exhibition continues more as one would expect, charting the progression of landscape and introducing its key themes.

Perhaps, most importantly, the exhibition looks at the significance of printmaking in popularising and disseminating the genre. It does rely heavily on prints but this is certainly a positive thing as it’s rare to see so many excellent works on paper together. For this reason though, it can sometimes seem quite gloomy – but there’s no choice as these works require low light levels and the walls have been painted to show off the paper (drawings and prints) rather than the canvases.

I am deliberately not writing anymore as otherwise I fear I will be at risk of regurgitating my MA. But, the joy of this exhibition is that it informs so well and specifically that I would urge you to go and learn about the period for yourself. The RA has not produced a catalogue for this which is a great shame. Instead, they’ve produced a lovely small exhibition guide that takes the format of their normal student guides.

The show is displayed in the Fine Rooms and the Weston Rooms which we’re not so used to but it certainly makes a change. The big names will no doubt pull in the punters (it’s worth visiting just to see the popular oils that appear later in the show) but this exhibition is so much more than a 19th century blockbuster and many of the works are a rare delight. It follows the evolution of the tradition of British landscape through 120 works all of which have been sourced from the RA’s own impressive collections. This is the first Burlington House show to do this in 50 years and illustrates the veritable treasure trove they house. I’d love to get down there to see the rest.

The week just gone is affectionately known by the art world as Frieze week – it is when Frieze (and this year Frieze Masters) takes over Regent’s Park and art lovers flock to London from across the world. Frieze is accompanied by a host of other fairs (my favourite, and the most stylish, being PAD) as well as gallery openings that compete with each other on every night of the week.

Monday night saw the opening of PAD – the most chic and classy fair by far. As I don’t ever write about fairs all I will say is that, although we were there for a considerable amount of time, I felt I needed to go back. I also fell in love with numerous pieces including a Gerrit Rietveld Billet Chair from 1927.

From PAD, we strolled out the square planning to go to Gagosian. But the opening was at Britannia Street not Davies Street. Oops! Peering through the window we could see the Penone exhibition but not get near the works. One black cross for me. Next we tried Ordovas which my Frieze companion assured me was open. One black cross for him.

Post PAD… Own photograph.

So, with very tired feet (well mine were already and it was only Monday) we went to Stephen Friedman who are exhibiting works by Tom Friedman (no relation). Friedman’s work explores everyday objects, elevating the mundane beyond its original purpose to extraordinary new forms. He deconstructs ideas and materials, rebuilding them into sculptural or artistic forms with a new level of genius. What we think we see and what we actually see are very different things.

The main gallery space holds the biggest and the best work in this exhibition – a mass of tangled wires that take over the entire room. As we move around the installation, we can see the hidden silhouettes of human figures and faces trapped within the forms, interlocked within the wires, emerging and evaporating depending on our position. Friedman is obsessive and, for every piece, he distils each material back to its essence and rebuilds it, presenting a new structure that crosses between the mundane and the magical.

Everyone is opening a blockbuster this week (which makes this time of year both amazing and horrendous) and the National Gallery has gone for Richard Hamilton who was still planning this exhibition days before his death last year. The painted white walls present a very modern space in the middle of this traditional gallery. Previewing on Tuesday, the same day as Frieze, the exhibition is a powerful statement of intent – this is Hamilton challenging the art world. It traces several themes of Hamilton’s career from the 1980s until his death, showing how he was moving towards a more traditional iconography at the end of his life.

The exhibition allows us to study his engagement with Marcel Duchamp, particularly in his works looking at the nude descending the staircase (addressed here in two works). The works are perfectly executed but have a sense of disquiet; they are quite hard to read, it is often very ambiguous as to what we are looking at.

Richard Hamilton exhibition at the National Gallery. Own photograph.

Hamilton was one of the great experimenters with the computer, creating images that were entirely new, clean and crisp. This exhibition of his work shows areas of interest that had obsessed him for so long. One series of works remained unfinished at the time of Hamilton’s death – a trio of inket prints that visualise a moment from Balzac’s The Unknown Masterpiece, telling the story of a painter who loses his mind trying to achieve the perfect nude. Hamilton knew he would not live to finish the work and made the decision that the exhibition would culminate in the initial presentation of these three large-scale variations. We will never really know what Hamilton intended and this makes us sombre and reflective. Each work features Courbet, Poussin and Titian contemplating a reclining female nude. For me, these works would still be mysterious even if they were finished but, in this state, they just leave us to wonder.

Richard Hamilton exhibition at the National Gallery. Own photograph.

These later paintings aren’t my favourite Hamiltons – they are quite clinical in parts – but there is no denying that this is a beautiful, and surprisingly moving, exhibition. Seemingly simple, there is so much going on; the paintings lead into one another, as the ideas progress from work to work.

Next, I headed down the road to Hauser & Wirth Piccadilly who are showing Fire by Days – paintings by the New York-based Rita Ackermann. The idea for these resulted from an accident, a paint spillage on the floor of her studio that she was hastily forced to clean. It was through these splurges of paint that she began to see suggestions of forms, abstracted but also figurative. The works are very striking in this space, their strong and vibrant colours complementing the style of the room. The pages from Ackermann’s sketchbooks, upstairs on the wood panelling of the American Room, look as if they have always been there. There is nothing wrong with this exhibition but it failed to move me or make enough of an impact (rather like several things recently).

Continuing down Piccadilly to White Cube Mason’s Yard, I popped in to see Magnus Plessen – another artist who oscillates between abstraction and figuration. Figurative elements cry out to us but they are juxtaposed with abstract passages that seek to disorientate the viewer. Plessen’s techniques are the most interesting aspect of his work – he often physically turns the canvas to reposition and confound the arrangement of the piece. It appears that he has scraped away the paint in parts using gestural washes of colour over heavier oils to muddle the picture planes. With psychedelic acid yellows and hot pinks, there is often too much going to fully understand his intentions. The show is well-curated and the works are afforded a lot of space – they need a white cube to shine which is exactly what has been allowed to happen here.

Magnus Plessen upstairs at White Cube. Own photograph.

My list was looking daunting as the day hurried by and I headed up to Pace, the newly opened New York gallery which is now housed in the west wing of the Royal Academy’s Burlington Gardens’ space. They have juxtaposed the paintings of Mark Rothko with the seascape photographs of Hiroshi Sugimoto. The eight Rothkos included here make use of a limited palette of predominantly black and grey while the Sugimoto’s use a similar grey-scale colour scheme. The artists form an aesthetic and quite superficial dialogue that, at times, becomes more of a battle. It is a stunning exhibition that prompts interesting comparisons – another simple show that achieves its aims stylishly without any fuss. Pace claim not to have opened in London sooner as they hadn’t found the right person to run the gallery or the right space – well they certainly seem to have hit the nail on the head here and I’m sure they will prove themselves during their four-year tenure.

After visiting a few shops on Regent Street (to give my brain a well-needed art break), I headed to Savile Row where Thomas Houseago has taken over both of Hauser & Wirth’s gallery spaces there.

Heading to Hauser. Own photograph.

He has chosen not just to split the works between the two galleries but also to give the two spaces different titles: I‘ll be Your Sister (in the North Gallery) comes from a very raw Motorhead song while Special Brew is a strong beer that Houseago used to drink every day before school, getting drunk and avoiding normal school-time activities. It allowed him to step outside the box. The North Gallery presents his monumental sculptures, intentionally big and messy, these works have the wow-factor. His works are brutally straightforward but still manage to appear mysterious and unworldly. Houseago spends a lot of time drawing and planning the process of his work and this is evident in the highly-textured surfaces that resemble sketching. The scale in the North Gallery is far more impactful than that in the South and the works are actually causing passers-by to stop and gape.

Thomas Houseago’s I’ll be Your Sister. Own photograph.

By nature of the sheer overload that is Frieze week, I’m having to be brief in my descriptions. Most of these exhibitions deserve more time and attention but this overview of my mad run around London should give you a taster.

Just over the road, Ordovas are presenting Painting from Life: Carracci Freud, a tiny exhibition that brings together a group of head studies by Annibale Carracci and Lucian Freud. This is a beautiful juxtaposition – intimate, simple and stunning. Ordovas knows how to get their shows right and this rare collaboration between them and a public art collection (Dulwich Picture Gallery has loaned a work) shows the esteem in which this gallery is held. The connections between Freud and Carracci have never before been explored but comparisons reveal intriguing affinities in technique, style, viewpoint and subject. This isn’t the gallery’s first show of this type as they previously juxtaposed Bacon and Rembrandt and attracted over 10,000 visitors in their first month alone!

The second of three New York galleries to open in London is David Zwirner (I’ve still not managed to pop into Michael Werner but hope to do so next week). The gallery has certainly chosen a statement show of Luc Tuymans’ work with which to open their 18th century Grafton Street townhouse. What a way to inaugurate this space. Again, the gallery knows how to keep it simple, allowing the paintings space to breathe and space to be viewed. Tuymans has lacked a proper presence in London since his 2004 Tate Modern retrospective but things are changing. Allo! is inspired by The Moon and Sixpence, a film loosely based on the life of Paul Gauguin. But Tuymans’ interest in this topic has to do with a general negation of modernism and Hollywood’s long-standing idealisation of the artist as a romantic savage. This gallery adds a frisson of excitement to the already vibrant area – Dover Street and Grafton Street only continue to improve.

After a very late lunch, I headed to Gagosian Gallery on Davies Street to see the Giuseppe Penone exhibition I’d planned to see on Monday night. I seem to have seen a lot of Penone recently. Here, he has engaged with the long narrow space of the Davies Street gallery, filling it with Pelle di foglie—sguardo incrociato, a large-scale standing sculpture comprised of delicately arranged tree branches and leaves defined in bronze. Positioned to conceal a human face, two long branches jut outwards in place of the eyes in a projective act of looking, recalling Penone’s long-held fascination with the process of seeing. It’s only a small show but, if you like Penone, then it’s worth popping in.

Further along the road at Gimpel Fils is Shana Moulton’s Preventation, a series of news videos in the on-going saga of Cynthia, her alter-ego. The films are accompanied by a number of the artworks that feature in her films.

I was nearly all art-ed out for the day but had a final stop for the opening of Tess Jaray’s Mapping the Unseeable at The Piper Gallery. This exhibition is definitely worth a visit partly to see how paintings need to be appreciated first-hand for the full experience. Jaray has always maintained a fascination with geometry, pattern, colour and repetition culminating in her distinctive, subtle yet penetrating works. As with many of the works I saw on Tuesday, Jaray plays with a carefully wrought tension between opposites: serenity and intensity, silence and sound, stasis and motion and two and three dimensions. The exhibition includes over twenty identically-sized works from Jaray’s recent series, After Malevich; inspired by Malevich’s Red Square, they have an energy and intensity that grabs you as soon as you enter. Despite the vast number of openings on Tuesday night, the gallery was packed!

Wednesday was my fairs day and, as well as a return trip to PAD, I spent time at Frieze and Frieze Masters which took up most of the day and evening. But, I did make a small window to pop to The Courtauld for a private tour of their Peter Lely exhibition. Lely is an important artist in British history but I don’t actually think very many people are familiar with, or excited by, his work so this is a brave choice of exhibition from The Courtauld. Lely was appointed Principal Painter to Charles II in 1661 and his paintings define the glamour and debauchery of the period. The works in this exhibition, however, concentrate on the period in the 1640s and 1650s when he was working in England, painting pastoral landscapes and large-scale narratives. The exhibition is organised around The Courtauld’s own unfinished The Concert – originally thought to depict Lely and his family, it seems to be a highly personal and allegorical interpretation of Music in the service of Beauty. This particular piece hasn’t been on display for a while and it’s nice to have the opportunity to view it in the context of other similar works.

Peter Lely, detail of The Concert. Own photograph.

The Courtauld is making the most of this exhibition with a Lely-fest; two other Lely’s are on show downstairs and room 12 boasts a display of drawings from Lely’s own celebrated and rare collection.

What this week has proved is how effective simple exhibitions can be. Exhibited on putty-coloured walls with beautifully focused lighting, this exhibition gets it right. Lely is a confusing artist with a mixture of styles that often betray his Flemish origins. The paintings on show here are far more powerful than his Court portraiture of later years and this is another winner from The Courtauld.

Lely exhibition at The Courtauld. Own photograph.

Thursday was my final day of rushing round fairs and exhibitions and the evening saw two conveniently close openings on Riding House Street. You may remember that I wrote about visiting Nick Goss’s studio a while ago. I popped back a couple of weeks ago to see his new works and, as a result, was ridiculously excited by the prospect this exhibition. The works here concentrate on portrayals of two different kinds of space – rehearsal spaces and the artist’s studio – where Goss seeks to investigate the detritus associated with the spaces used when playing in a band. Cheap and simple, the limitations of these rooms allow creativity to flourish which promulgates the development of musical ideas. Yet, devoid of players and instruments, the spaces have an uncharacteristic, melancholic atmosphere. Goss has developed the theme of the shabby rehearsal space in a study of fakery and idealisation, filled with a sense of nostalgia and an elusive sensibility. His are beautiful works, subtle paintings that pull you into his unique world.

Over the road at TJ Boulting is an exhibition by Juliana Leite; her new work stems from consistent investigations into the physical action of her own body in space. The centrepiece is a large sculpture, of two separate latex forms joined in the centre; describing the artist’s movement up and down a staircase, the piece strikes a resonance with Marcel Duchamp’s Nude descending a staircase (a common theme this week). The two parts were cast from a large mould composed of a set of stairs covered with a wooden tunnel, slowly lined with clay. The work is immense and we are drawn to walk around it, exploring its textures and crevices several times before we feel we have understood its form.

Even thinking about the week just gone slightly exhausts me. I have seen such a wealth of incredible art (some not so incredible too) and I have the sorest feet to show for it. I still have 12 exhibitions to cover that I didn’t manage to have the time for, I’d have loved to get to the other art fairs and I would have relished more time at the fairs I did explore. But, there are only a set number of hours in the week and I think I didn’t do badly!

Tom Friedman is at Stephen Friedman Gallery until 10th November 2012, www.stephenfriedman.com. Richard Hamilton: The Late Works is at the National Gallery until 13th January 2013, www.nationalgallery,org.uk. Rita Ackermann:Fire by Days is at Hauser & Wirth Piccadilly until 3rd November 2012, www.hauserwirth.com. Magnus Plessen: Riding the Image is at White Cube Mason’s Yard until 10th November 2012, www.whitecube.com. Rothko/Suginoto: Dark Paintings and Secrets is at Pace London until 17th November 2012, www.pacegallery.com. Thomas Houseago: I’ll be Your Sister and Special Brew are at Hauser & Wirth Savile Row until 27th October 2012, www.hauserwirth.com. Painting from Life: Carracci Freud is at Odovas until 15th December 2012, www.ordovasart.com. Luc Tuymans: Allo! Is at David Zwirner until 17th November, www.davidzwirner.com. Giuseppe Penone: Intersecting Gaze / Sguardo Incrociato is at Gagosian Davies Street until 24th November 2012, www.gagosian.com. Shana Moulton: Prevention is at Gimpel Fils until 17th November 2012, www.gimpelfils.com. Tess Jaray – Mapping the Unseeable is at The Piper Gallery until Friday 9th November 2012, www.thepipergallery.com. Peter Lely: A Lyrical Vision is at The Courtauld Gallery until 13th January 2012, www.courtauld.ac.uk. Nick Goss – Tin Drum is at Josh Lilley Gallery until Friday 23rd November 2012, www.joshlilleygallery.com. Juliana Cerqueira Leite: Portmanteau is at TJ Boulting until 10th November 2012, www.tjboulting.com.

Wednesday was one of those amazing late summer days and I managed to arrange my meetings at Aqua for most of the afternoon – the sunniest spot in town – which meant I was perfectly placed for cocktail hour.

When the sun started to set and there was no more basking to be done, I headed up the road to Dering Street for the Ronchini Gallery’s latest exhibition. TIME, after TIME explores similarities between generations of artists, featuring a range of contemporary Americans alongside Italian artists from the 1950s, 60s and 70s including Michelangelo Pistoletto, Alighiero Boetti and Alberto Burri. Many young American artists have been influenced by Italian movements and consciously, or subconsciously, reference Arte Povera in their works.

TIME, after TIME at Ronchini Gallery. Own photograph.

Individually some of the works are fantastic. Some, however, are not. The concept of the exhibition is clever and it may well be more effective when the gallery is empty. The curation does draw intriguing parallels between seemingly contrasting pieces and the juxtapositions are provocative.

But when the gallery was busy during the private view, the exhibition became somewhat lost and messy.

TIME, after TIME at Ronchini Gallery. Own photograph.

Continuing with this Arte Povera theme, next on our list was Haunch of Venison’s latest Giuseppe Penone exhibition. Haunch had a Penone exhibition at their old Burlington Gardens gallery last summer. This one presents a range of new drawings – works on paper have always been central to Penone’s work and, whether as independent works or preliminary pieces, his drawings are all connected by ideas of touch, surface and growth. Penone compares the act of drawing to the growth of a tree and he uses his fingerprints to represent the tree and to create a symbol of touch. By pressing a single thumbprint onto the paper he creates marks that recall the age rings of a tree.

Giuseppe Penone at Haunch of Venison on Eastcastle Street. Own photograph.

The exhibition also includes one sculpture Un anno di cera ricopre lo spazio di luce (One year of wax covers the space of light) which shows a hollow tree trunk. The work relates to Penone’s new commission which is currently on show at the Whitechapel Gallery (I’ve yet to visit) – a hollow inverted tree lined with gold, its surface covered with a layer of the artists fingerprints.

I like Penone’s work but I wasn’t blown away by this exhibition. This has been a common problem of late, not just at Haunch and not just for me. There are far too many exhibitions that don’t quite go far enough to make their mark and, although they include some great works, aren’t memorable for the right reasons. The Giuseppe Penone exhibition can seem a little bland on first viewing but it did grow on me the more time I spent in the gallery. I find his drawings are more engaging when seen alongside his sculpture but the limited space makes this impossible.

The gallery has been turned into one main space with a very narrow section at the end for this exhibition, a layout that is particularly effective for this show and really increases the feeling of movement around the gallery.

Giuseppe Penone at Haunch of Venison on Eastcastle Street. Own photograph.

Although the sun had gone, it was still hot and my shoes weren’t the best choice for such weather. Now, you’ve all heard of people having injuries from wearing silly shoes –blisters, twisted ankles and the like but I can beat all of them. These shoes can only be described as weapons. I have always walked with my ankles close together – it’s elegant, especially when wearing a dress and because I’m a tango dancer it’s second nature; it has been drilled into me that your ankles should brush past each other at every step. So, as I sashayed down the street, I forgot about my footwear and as my ankles gracefully brushed past each other, the spikes from my heels hit skin and I managed to spike myself. I don’t think many people can say they have gashed open their ankles due to the killer bits sticking out of their shoes.

So after wiping the blood from my feet, we wandered (slowly!) to the last gallery on my list which was the Josh Lilley Gallery. I’m sad to say I’ve missed a couple of their recent exhibitions but I’m glad I made it to this one as it was easily the highlight of my night.

Hang Up is a group exhibition where the works blend so seamlessly together, discussing the potential of materiality, that you’d be forgiven for thinking this was a solo show – OK, maybe that’s a slight exaggeration but it gives you an idea of the purity of the hang. That is the curatorial talent that Lilley has in bringing together artists; there are no uncomfortable pairings here but this is another beautifully curated show, exploring how the use of fabric, pattern and traditional designs allow for an engagement with each artist’s cultural, political, economic and conceptual process.

Hang Up¸ the exhibition’s title, comes from a seminal work by Eva Hesse where by attaching a long metal rod to a canvas she transformed a painting into a sculpture. This is recalled in the works upstairs where Liam Everett makes use of non-traditional processes with such materials as salt, alcohol, lemon and sunlight in order to force changes onto his surfaces. The works are supported in non-traditional ways using leaning poplar beams and other such devices.

Ellen Lesperance uses gouache and graphite on tea-stained paper to depict motifs that highlight power struggles and women’s rights. Her works become odes to those who use fabric and design as a means of self-expression and liberation. The two paintings here, shown alongside a knitted work, depict sweater patterns that function as memorials to individuals committed to fighting for causes greater than themselves. Not only are the works perfectly executed but they are very moving and emotive.

Work by Ellen Lesperance. Own photograph.

The textures of Ruairiadh O’Connell’s works draw us in closer, using images of carpet designs from the biggest casinos in Vegas, laying them as silkscreen images onto wax-filled steel panels. He kneads and manipulates the wax before it sets, recalling the techniques used by masseurs in casino complexes to relax visitors in order that they spend more money.

Josh Lilley never disappoints and this is one of his most striking exhibitions to date. It was time for dinner and as our reservation at Brasserie Zédel wasn’t for another hour or so we headed to their Bar Américain. It was like stepping into another world, into Vegas – or maybe that was the influence of O’Connell!

As there was only a week or so left of Josh Lilley’s latest exhibition, I decided to pop in to see their presentation of sculpture by a trio of artists – Bryn Lloyd-Evans, John Nielsen, and Jonathan Trayte.

The exhibition is quite a mixed bag, highlighting the variety of sculptural practice that exists in the contemporary art world at the moment – some playful, some serious. These works are designed for presentation in a gallery such as this and are intrinsically aware of their audience, made with us in mind and moulded for us to look. They wouldn’t exist without their audience.

The works are not as simple as they first appear. Nielsen, in particular, presents domestic objects, based on recognisable objects, that aren’t domestic at all. The works’ overt self-consciousness takes us by surprise as the artist’s personality and process is evident. His works are intended to function in conversation with one another. Nielsen wants us to regard his sculptures of historic artefacts from another time or place rather than modern sculpture, provoking questions of interpretation, narration and fiction to become embedded in their meanings.

All three artists present very contrasting pieces. Trayte’s works have a surprising delicacy considering their highly stylised colouring inspired by the glossy packaging of modern-day products. Yet, the works originate from organic objects that are cast in bronze and then painted in meticulous layers. The contradictions inherent within the works present a state of fragility.

This exhibition takes an interesting look at young artists who are already making a rapid impact on the art world. Although the individual pieces didn’t cry out to me, they work as a collective group, showing the artists’ acute engagement with the parameters of gallery display.

From there, I headed to the Lisson Gallery for the opening of two new exhibitions. Jason Martin’s paintings are intoxicating, focusing on the purity and mesmerising power of paint itself. Applied in thick brushstrokes, sweeping arcs of colour dance dynamically across Martin’s canvases. Martin plays with paint – for him it is not just the tool with which he creates a work but the core of his practice. He pushes the boundary of the medium, sculpting his pigment to create densely-worked surfaces.

Jason Martin, Rumi, Camber and Rugen. Own photograph.

In Behemoth,Martin has transcended the two-dimensional, creating a monumental work comprising layers of stacked virgin cork coated in black pigment. This is a radical departure for Martin and shows his theatrical use of pigment in a new, unruly manner. Behemoth is a mythical beast mentioned in the Book of Job that has become a metaphor for any large entity. The work’s physical presence in the gallery almost denotes another being; around which we are forced, simultaneously inspired and intimidated.

Jason Martin, Behemoth. Own photograph.

Across the road in Lisson’s second space is an exhibition of works by Richard Deacon. Again, it is the monumental that makes the most impact. Congregate is a large stainless steel sculpture with interlocking frames that come together to form an intricate and challenging single entity. The work is playful and vibrant, challenging the viewer mentally to untangle its intrinsically linked, individual elements.

Richard Deacon, Congregate. Own photograph.

Fold, the second of the monumental works, is a glazed ceramic sculpture hypnotic in its design. Once more, the work is composed from multiple elements that come together to form an oversized piece, foreboding in size yet inviting in form.

Richard Deacon, Fold. Own photograph.

The remainder of the exhibition consists of smaller rectilinear works, interesting in their intimacy and not at all what I have come to expect from Deacon. They, however, lack the impact of the larger works. I know that size isn’t everything but for me they seemed to be the forerunners to the overall construction of the larger pieces. Deacon has always been fascinated by construction and the exhibition furthers these preoccupations, analysing how single objects unite to form a whole.

Richard Deacon at Lisson Gallery. Own photograph.

Although I wasn’t able to afford them huge amounts of time, both exhibitions at the Lisson were worth the dash down the Bakerloo line – they are reflective shows concentrating on the progression of two artists who present interesting cross-overs in their radically different practices.

Bryn Lloyd-Evans, John Nielsen, Jonathan Trayte is at Josh Lilley Gallery until 18th May, www.joshlilleygallery.com. Jason Martin: Infinitive and Richard Deacon: Association are both at Lisson Gallery until 23rd June 2012, www.lissongallery.com.

Today (well yesterday by the time you are reading) was hectic and ridiculous even for one of my mad private view evenings. Even before I began the openings, I’d been at Somerset House, where the courtyard is currently being turfed for a brilliant-looking art installation, and visited Michael Ajerman’s studio where I was allowed a look at his amazing current work.

Somerset House. Own photograph.

His studio is only a five minute walk from Flowers on Kingsland Road. With some of the PVs opening at 4pm and with such a long to-see list, I popped into Flowers for an early sneak peek while they were still setting up and plugging in the works. The artist very kindly got everything going for me so I could have a look.

I first met Tim Lewis at another Flowers opening and had only seen one of his works first-hand before this show but they are hypnotic. Mechanisms takes over the downstairs galleries at Flowers with a huge range of Lewis’s works, bringing together some of his most progressive and challenging pieces.

Tim Lewis at Flowers, Kingsland Road. Own photograph.

His kinetic sculptures are a marvel and require great skill and dedication to make; the electronic programming and physicality entails an extensive period of development for each individual piece. This is Lewis’s passion and he has been making mechanised works since the age of eight so no wonder his ideas are now so advanced. All the works are mesmerising but two stood out for me – Jetsam, a large mechanised bird-like creature, fixed to a robotic arm, is programmed to attempt to build a nest. The creature picks up objects which it stumbles upon moving them to a specified point. It is not affected by human interference and must work within the limits set by the artist. I could have stayed and watched this sculpture on its heart-wrenching, continuous journey for hours.

Tim Lewis, Jetsam. Own photograph.

Pony is one of Lewis’s more well-known works; an ostrich-like form, constructed from three mechanical arms, moves across the floor towing an empty carriage. It is an independent entity, slightly alarming but beautiful and reminiscent of a scene from a fairy-tale. Lewis’s works capture a spirit unlike any other – they are fun yet wistful, pondering on the transience and difficulties of life through self-contained forms on pre-determined journeys. Fundamentally, they are just beautiful.

Tim Lewis, Pony. Own photograph.

I was loathe to leave but felt I should let them finish setting up and I had eight galleries to get to.

My next stop was White Cube, Hoxton Square. All three London White Cubes were opening tonight with LONDON PICTURES by Gilbert & George. The series consists of 292 pictures in their largest project to date. It is typical Gilbert & George and if you don’t like them (I do) then it’s too late to be converted. Although using their expected formula, these works are approached from a new angle. They make use of nearly 4,000 newspaper headline posters which the artists stole, collected and classified over a period of ten years. Using the language of the media, they present a survey of modern life making us aware of its violence, destruction and terror. Of course, Gilbert & George appear in all the works, staring at us, watching the world go by, haunting the streets of London.

They are huge, striking works using predominantly black, red and white. They do not show a pleasant London but one of which we should be fearful. It was somewhat strange seeing the beer buckets outside in the square during the afternoon but, by the size of the crowd gathering, everyone was quickly adapting to this new style PV.

I continued to White Cube in Mason’s Yard to see some more of the exhibition where the harrowing topics continue – brawl, kill, deaths, jail, paedo. Gilbert & George themselves were at Mason’s Yard chatting happily to visitors along with Jay Jopling and the usual White Cube celebrity crowd. The works are more ‘in your face’ than usual; however blunt the truth is present in every work. Brooding and violent, they show what contemporary society is really like in a collective portrait of London. All this does sound very depressing and while the works may give a powerful message I think it’s important to remember how lovely London is and that we don’t need to fear every step we take. Not that this is the intention of the works, but it’s easy to get weighed down by the violence.

As I was running to schedule, I hopped in a cab to the Josh Lilley Gallery to see their Sarah Dwyer exhibition which opened at the end of February. Dwyer’s works have incredible painted textures where the surfaces resonate with movement and energy. Through painting in layers and constantly revising her compositions, Dwyer pulls together inchoate shapes and ambiguous forms to suggest something unknown, a manifestation of her subconscious in other-worldly scenes. Her mark-making echoes the stream of consciousness writing of James Joyce with its lyrical forms and ambiguous allusions. Obviously, all art is subjective but these will speak to different people in very different ways as the shapes are open to so many interpretations.

Sarah Dwyer, Saudade. Own photograph.

Her works hold many influences and the shapes of Soutine and Gorky are evident but the list is endless. Seven large canvases are on show downstairs – the gallery isn’t overloaded but cleverly filled so that the works are allowed room to breathe and space to speak.

Dwyer’s paintings are very powerful, fighting for attention with their bold colours and intriguing shapes. This is another winner at a gallery who are consistently showing great talent.

Sarah Dwyer’s Falling into Positions at Josh Lilley. Own photograph.

It was already proving a good afternoon/evening and I was finding the art energising.

Next up was the new Haunch of Venison on Eastcastle Street, another area that is becoming a new art hotspot. This is quite a small space with only two main rooms. We are so used to Haunch’s mega-spaces that everybody kept looking for more but with the crisp Haunch-style aesthetic that we’re used to it’s a great second gallery. Their opening exhibition is Katie Paterson’s 100 Billion Suns which presents a selection of her recent projects where, using a series of sophisticated technologies, she transforms distant occurrences in the universe into objects that we can comprehend on a human scale. One such work is The Dying Star Letters; every time a star exploded, Paterson wrote and posted a letter to communicate this. Through a range of everyday formats, Paterson reduces these distant occurrences into a medium we can easily understand.

This is a very subtle exhibition and one that was slightly lost tonight due to the heaving crowd celebrating Haunch’s opening.

The new Haunch. Own photograph.

Initially, I decided to give Paradise Row a miss and headed to the station. But, after 20 minutes of waiting outside Oxford Circus, due to overcrowding, I decided to walk back to Paradise Row to see Birdhead’s new large-scale black and white photography. The artistic duo are known for looking at daily life in Shanghai; their snapshot-like images form a passage of thought and we are able to follow the artists through their day-to-day activities.

Birdhead take over Paradise Row. Own photograph.

Downstairs, is an exhibition of work by Justin Coombes. In complete contrast, these are colourful over-saturated images that fuse the fantastical with the everyday. Lots of people seemed to be moving from Haunch to Paradise Row, happy that they only had to walk round the corner for a second helping of art.

I did pass other openings in the taxi on my way to Gagosian but, although I tried, I had to admit that I couldn’t manage every gallery opening in London tonight. Britannia Street is showing new works by Thomas Ruff. Ruff seeks to test the limits of photography and, over the years, his subject matter has varied hugely as has his form of image-making. But astronomy has always been a source of interest and this latest body of works contemplates Mars using images sourced through the public Internet archive of NASA. Ruff transforms the fragmentary representations with saturated colours that alter the feel of the landscapes.

He has also worked with 3D-image making and on entry to one side gallery, you can pick up a pair of specially designed 3D glasses. All these did was make me rather dizzy and I preferred the viewing experience without them. These are not photographs as we would expect. The works are impressive, transforming strange and foreign landscapes into a minefield of even more distorted scenes. We are encouraged to look from both near and far, studying the pixelated colour patterns as well as the scene as a whole. As impactful as they are, I didn’t find them particularly exciting – I could take them or leave them and they certainly weren’t as moving as some of the exhibitions I’d just seen.

Gagosian on Davies Street is also showing Ruff’s work but a series of unique monumental nudes. I had to admit defeat and accept this wasn’t one I could squeeze in tonight, unless someone knows how to teleport me from place to place. All galleries now seem to be using their multiple spaces as a whole which means I will probably spend many more nights running across London to get the proper atmosphere of an exhibition.

It was time to shrink. All the walking was taking its toll and I had to sacrifice my stilettos for some more practical footwear so that I could get to my final stop in one piece.

I couldn’t end my evening without seeing the third London White Cube – Bermondsey was packed. It was important to visit all three spaces to get a full sense of the scale of the project. Only visiting one of the galleries felt like walking into a blockbuster show and only bothering to look at one room. The scale of LONDON PICTURES, as always with Gilbert & George, is mind-blowing. Yet, the exhibition at Bermondsey only uses the South Galleries, flowing between three connecting rooms, which shows quite how enormous this gallery is.

Like me, Gilbert & George were moving between the different White Cubes but they looked more awake than I did. I was ‘done in’ and it was time to buy a weighty, but great, catalogue and limp back to London Bridge to call it a night. I could easily wax lyrical about many of these exhibitions and there are truly some gems here. The brevity of some of the reviews certainly does not reflect their quality but more the quantity I crammed in to one evening.

If I’m going to have another night like this I may need to sacrifice my stilettos for skates!

Tim Lewis: Mechanisms is at Flowers, Kingsland Road, until 14th April 2012, www.flowersgalleries.com. Gilbert & George: LONDON PICTURES is at all three London White Cubes until 12th May 2012, www.whitecube.com. Sarah Dwyer: Falling into Positions is at the Josh Lilley Gallery until 30th March 2012, www.joshlilleygallery.com. Katie Paterson: 100 Billion Suns is at Haunch of Venison, Eastcastle Street until 28th April 2012, www.haunchofvenison.com. Justin Coombes: Halcyon Song and Welcome to Birdhead World Again are at Paradise Row until 7th April 2012, www.paradiserow.com. Thomas Ruff: ma.r.s. is at Gagosian Gallery until 21st April 2012, www.gagosian.com.

My first encounter with Nick Goss’s work was when someone showed me a photo on an i-Phone in a pub. I was instantly captivated by his elusive, yet enigmatic, style of painting. Not much art can really grab your attention from a phone screen but there was something about these works that left me wanting more. The ghostly textures pulled me in and the more I heard about Nick, the more I wanted to know.

Over the last year I’ve seen a range of his pieces at the Josh Lilley Gallery and he has also produced a response to be included in In Conversation with Stuart Sutcliffe which opens in April – how did that come around so quickly?! It was because of this exhibition that I ended up trying to find my way to his studio today. Getting out at Elephant & Castle I was instantly disorientated. It’s another one of those stations where I never use the right exit and never end up in the right place. After several failed attempts, and having crossed the roundabout three times, I set off in the wrong direction. Finally I managed to get it right but half way down the New Kent Road, a taxi came to my rescue (again). And, thank heavens it did, as the studio was much further away than I had anticipated. When will I learn?

I arrived quite late and frazzled but walking into Nick’s studio had an instantly calming effect as the smell of oil paint wafted over to meet me. Everything seemed right and I was greeted by Casbah – the work that will be included in the Sutcliffe show. For this, Nick went up to Liverpool on a Stuart Sutcliffe research trip to get fully in the mood. As well as being an artist, the multi-talented Nick plays in the band, My Sad Captains, so the combination of art and music in ICWSS particularly appealed to him. His band has been described as lonesome and groovy with a warm dynamic range; his music elicits very similar emotional responses to those of his artwork. Over the last year, Nick has been using board more than canvas, experimenting with block shapes as seen here. His work has developed a long way, without losing any of its potency.

Nick Goss’s studio. Own photograph.

Casbah looks at how the reality of being a musician is often so different to the imagined ideal. Nick wanted to investigate the associated detritus of playing in a band and the sort of rehearsal spaces and small venues that the Beatles would have confronted on arriving in Hamburg. When devoid of players and instruments, these spaces have a peculiar, melancholic atmosphere. Cheap, simple and limited, these rooms allowed creativity to flourish and promulgated the development of musical ideas.

At the studio. Own photograph.

Nick has also painted a companion piece to Casbah, a bigger composition with a different colour scheme and tonality. It’s different but the same, emanating from the same point it is a mirror image of the first composition.

Looking back, Josh Lilley first saw Nick’s work in late 2008 at his studio at the RA. He then included him in his gallery’s inaugural show. Nick graduated in summer 2008 at which time Saatchi began buying his works. Josh had spotted something special and offered him a solo show for April of last year. The rest, as they say, is history.

Nick’s works play closely on the paradox of observation and memory, purposefully seeking out locations and subjects that co-exist between the landscape and the industrial, the recognisable and the ambiguous. The works include many historical allusions which demonstrate the ability of painting to accommodate the historic alongside the contemporary, and to integrate the conceptual within the visual. Many of his images focus on the remains of a built environment that is abandoned, overgrown or decayed. Nick removes any sense of specificity from these spaces, embodying the works with beautiful timelessness and romanticism in his parallel world. Yet, they are real places with a haunting presence and fading memories. The scenes appear almost overlaid at times as dense textures and thickly-rendered surfaces are covered with delicate washes in dream-like scenarios.

Across the studio, and indeed across his whole oeuvre, Nick’s works range dramatically in size. Whether you’re looking at his intimate watercolours or huge canvases (exceeding three metres), the texture and feel remains the same whatever the scale. We are not meant to look at these works and identify figures, objects or landscapes. Instead, their elusive presence is intended to fade in and out of our viewpoint. The works are bold yet fragile in their portrayals.

At the studio. Own photograph.

Nick’s work fringes on the cusp of memory and imagination, denying space and time. His desolate landscapes are incredibly moving; the geography of the images is both relative and abstract importance especially when viewed alongside the emotional reality depicted in them.

The studio had a very conducive atmosphere and I could have happily whiled away the day sniffing oil paint fumes and getting lost in the paintings. Paint tubes jostled for space on a central table next to pots bursting with brushes, and sketches discarded in a corner caught my attention but the room wasn’t cluttered. It exactly what you’d expect of an artist’s studio but was personal to Nick in all aspects. One wall was filled with watercolours on pages torn from a sketchbook, developing the theme of the shabby rehearsal space by adding manufactured models in a study of fakery and idealisation. These drawings are filled with a romantic melancholy, a sense of nostalgia and an elusive sensibility. It was very special to get a feeling for how Nick works and to see his progression of ideas.

Watercolours on the wall. Own photograph.

Examining the paintings in progress was fascinating. I won’t give too much away – you’re meant to be left wanting more. Nick returns to Josh Lilley for a solo show this October and no doubt these great ideas will have developed and taken shape. This is an artist who is quietly making big waves!